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During the last month, I’ve watched faculty and staff moving great quantities of furniture between classrooms and offices. It’s a summer ritual at HPU.

We work and live on an island, so shipping pre-assembled furniture to our campus can be expensive.

There are several sites with interesting collections of economical yet attractive flat pack furniture. These designs are much easier to ship to Hawaii in bulk than comparable pre-assembled furniture.

Here’s two YouTube videos with some interesting ideas in flat pack furniture.

• Treehugger Picks: Flat pack Furniture
• More Creative Furniture for Cramped Urban Living: 20 Pieces of Ingenious ‘Flat Pack’ Furniture

Here’s are 2 cardboard classroom desks that were designed by students at the Rhode Island School of Design. The specific dimensions of this cardboard chair, complete with a functional desk, are available at the YouTube page for the first video called Amazing Cardboard Chair Design Unfolding RISD.

This next video shows the assembly process for a Legare desk, available from SimonHelene.com. The components are manufactured at the company’s factory in New York state, and can easily be shipped in a flat pack. Putting the desk together is much easier than the flat pack kits sold at many big box stores.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is encouraging consumers to recycle their old mobile phones, according to the New York Times. E-waste or electronic waste has become a greater problem as mobile phone and computer consumption increases worldwide. Mobile phone batteries contain high levels of heavy metals.

EPA’s new “easy call” campaign will let consumers drop off their mobile phone at participating stores, or return the phone with a prepaid mailer.

Of course, consumers can always resell their old phones on eBay or a dedicated site. There are campaigns to collect old mobile phones for soldiers, crime victims, and others who may only need a lifeline or limited connection.

Consumers seem more likely to return their old phone when they purchase a new one. Some mobile phone stores offer to transfer address books and files to a new phone, and keep the old phone for recycling. I try to erase or wipe my old mobile phones before I retire them, just for the sake of my own privacy.

USA: W admits that he “miscalculated” post-war conditions in Iraq. Has he checked the body count lately? Who in the world told W to say this? It may be as big a gaffe as “Mission Accomplished”.

W also says that he believes Kerry is teling the truth about Vietnam. W may as well take this issue off the table, as it seems that W hasn’t told the truth about his own time in the military.

Did I hear the other shoe just drop? It’s the economy, stupid. Greenspan says that baby boomer benefits are in jeopardy unless the government acts now, and he’s not talking about more tax cuts. Also, the US economy appears to be shrinking. Happy days, people. Truly happy days.

USA: Yahoo! News - Checking Account Fraud Is Increasing: “When Shereen Greene recently scanned her bank statement, she found a $139 charge from a company she had never heard of — Pharmacycards.com. The Atlanta paralegal dug out her canceled check and easily saw it was fake. The name on it was her maiden name, which she had not used in seven years. The address was five years old and her signature was missing. In its place, was a brief message: “Authorized by your customer. No signature required.”“

USA: UNITED STATES: Military families applaud Fahrenheit 9/11: “Natalie Sorton, a 25-year-old moderate Republican and wife of an infantryman who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, told the Fayetteville Observer in North Carolina, where Fort Bragg is, that the movie changed her opinion of the war in Iraq. “All this movie did was open my eyes a little more to what’s really going on”, she said. “I think this is definitely going to have an impact on the election. I’m glad I’m a voter.” Moore portrayed soldiers accurately as doing what they were told, Sorton said.
Greg Rohwer-Selken, 33, of Ames, Iowa, whose wife, Karol, is serving in the National Guard in Iraq, was moved to tears and told Time magazine: “It really made me question why she has to be over there.”
In conservative Indiana County, Pennsylvania, Eric Blank told the Indiana Gazette: “I have not felt this angry toward an administration ever. I wanted Clinton yanked from office, but I think Bush should go to jail.”“